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Bob Kholos (guest)
OR:

After we have spent over a trillion dollars in Iraq, and sending home over 100,000 troops and a loss of more than 4,000 uniformed personnel, most of Iraq still has no electricity, or infrastructure of hope. With 50,000 troops in that country, and over 100,000 private contractors (who pays for them?), we and they are not better off more than seven years later. We will still spend billions of dollars a year trying to do something that we couldn't do - peace in Iraq and winning the "hearts and minds," of the people.

Meanwhile, we are suffering at home, with high unemployment and a deteriorating infrastructure. When we spend a billion dollars in Iraq, why don't we claim a few hundred million dollars with states, such as Oregon, North and South Dakota, Iowa, Vermont, and others? A small state revenue program from Iraq to America, could at least help education, roads, and rural medical care, so much needed in these small states. After a couple of years, we could do this backward revenue sharing with larger states.

Linda Conley (guest)
OR:

Since time immemorial monsoon rain patterns remain unpredictable in Southeast Asia. Thirty years ago I spent nearly a year in India, returning two years later. In the one year, monsoon rains resulted in no flooding across subcontinental India and little drought. Unpredictable monsoons are a way of life in Asia for people living there. Upon my return, I recall sitting eight hours in a stalled train due to monsoon floodings in Bihar state. Floods happen with monsoons and also, drought. Operative word: unpredictable monsoons!

Today, then, Secretary of State pushes the Al Gore Agenda: monsoon floods in northern Pakistan are a sign, thus reports Hilary Clinton, of global climate change! Imagine! You don't say?! Or, did she say, global warming? Funny. Can't remember. When will silly, very silly liberals understand that their global warming scheme is regarded as nothing less than a farce among most people cross-globally? Like, no one cares, and more importantly, we're onto your nonsense. How much of the world,world-wide, in any way believe any of the nonsense regarding global warming? People: Climate Happens. It changes! Stop trying to drain our pockets with your pet causes that prove to be time and again, false hysteria.

bob montgomery (guest)
IN:

I think an emergency session of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee should be called poste-haste to begin and finish the nominating process and start handing out medals. Over the decades, many peace prizes have been given out for ending the Middle East crisis, and this should be no exception. Hillary has said everything should be wrapped up in about a year, so let's get those nominations in. The press reports that the old favorite, shuttle diplomacy, has been in play, so I think we can all agree that there will be peace in .....time. Let's see now, Barack already has his, right? Can't remember if that was for bringing peace to the mideast or something else. Anyway, Hillary doesn't have one yet. Did Bill get one? We know Jimmy got one because he brought peace to the Middle East, right?
On a lighter note, the Iranians are applauding the coming 'peace talks' because of course the President will have to regretfully inform the Israelis that they cannot eliminate the Iranian means for the production of weapons of mass destruction while there are 'peace talks' going on. And that's a wrap.

Jim Wojtasiewicz (guest)
VA:

Ms. Ravitch makes an important point, but it applies to schools as well as teachers. The concept of giving parents taxpayer money to cherry-pick schools for their children goes totally against the concept of public education. It seems obvious that it is in the interest of all of us to give every child an equal opportunity to a quality education. Every child, not just my child.

Jacob Bloomfield (guest)
NY:

Myra Harris (guest)
WA:

It should be terrifying to Americans that the wingnuts and the crazies are running for office with reasonably good chances of winning. How can a woman of any party vote for a Sharron Angle who wants to criminialize abortion for any reason? How can any person with a brain vote for her when she belonged to a political party whose primary platform was to stop the microchipping of people and their livestock? How about those Second Amendment responses if the election doesn't go her way?

How about Sarah Palin, a very nice looking nitwit? How crazy do you have to be in America before people decide you're just a tad too crazy for that vote? How low does your IQ have to be before the voters decide that perhaps you are simply not smart enough to get the vote? These are scary times when the inmates are running for a chance to manage the asylum. Civil rights, human rights, women's rights to privacy...all at risk.

paul katz (guest)
PA:

The issue of Obama's faith is a red herring, as are the birth certificate and undisclosed college records. I for one, would prefer a a Muslim with common sense, honesty, competence, and a excellent group of appointments, rather than an incompetent President of Christian or Jewish faith. Unfortunately, Obama is regardless of religious affiliation, an incompetent ideologue with a group of fellow travelers as appointments and staff.

The crime is the media intentionally omitted and painted over the personal history which would have been predictive of an Obama presidency. Just who will ever trust the MSM in the future is questionable, but their equity is forever tied to their created candidate and President. Hence, we all understand the ongoing shilling and diversions relating to Obama's failed two years. Some invested stakeholders even attempt to trumpet as success's the passed laws now handicapping American with the shackles of indebtedness. Funny, how Democratic candidates don't seem to mention them much , maybe it's George W. Bush's fault, or George Washington"s, or George Carlin's, or any George will do. To understand America today please look up "insolvency" for our economic status and "bankruptcy" for our political leadership.

Carl Meacham (guest)
NY:

I live in New York, about two miles from northern Pennsylvania and on top of the Marcellus shale. The drilling is underway in Pennsylvania and the natural gas is so plentiful that they have to cap wells as the pipeline can't handle it all. Rumor has it there is an oil deposit under the shale that exceeds the size of that in the Arab nations. We have resources that exceed what the media wishes to share. Because we are the wealthiest nation, we have developed new techniques to recover previously untapped resources.

A poor nation can't do that. Only a wealthy nation, a free nation, a capitalist nation encourages innovation. Just as a poor man will never offer the unemployed a job, a poor nation can't solve problems through innovation. As government burdens the people with cap and trade and other idiotic assessments, the wealth is diminished. As government regulates more areas of our lives, less incentive will choke invention.

Tom Calvin (guest)
CT:

Dean Baker highlights a black swan during a time we're running record deficits which will similarly, "end badly." And without rehashing the CRA's mandatory loans, and Fannie and Freedie's willingness to take bad loans, these two things dramatically increased the number of buyers to the market. Adding buyers increases cost. Increased cost will normally slow pace, but with Fannie and Freddie backing no money down loans, or worse, 125% loans, what was the disincentive to buying a home at any price with values skyrocketing?

Overleveraging upside down mortgages, greedy brokers, and co-mingling of assets certainly didn't help, but without the CRA and F&F, the bubble couldn't be built. If everyone had to put 20% down on a home, it wouldn't matter how much a broker was overleveraged if the assets had a positive value. Of course with loans still being made with as little as 3% down, it's really encouraging to see that we learned from our mistakes. It's one thing to discuss the Black Swan after the fact, it's another to ignore that it happened and repeat the same suicidal economic mistakes.

Lee (MMBJack) McCarty (guest)
NV:

I couldn't agree more than I do with Dean Baker on the bottom line of what is and has happened, including the fact the economists still in vogue are looking through a telescope from the wrong end. Everything about the Republican opposition strategy of blocking all things needed to stimulate jobs in America - to destroy Obama and the Democrats in 2010-1012, in effect to ruin the economy and the futures of millions of American workers while backing tax reduction for the richest people and fighting unemployment benefits tooth and nail, and any ideas for job creation so that failure in the economy is victory for the Republican nut case freaks now suggested as being so wonderful.

A sad day for America and the future of the entire working and middle class all in the name of taking over Congress in November as a prelude to the complete defeat of Obama in 2012, and Americans you ain't seen nothing yet of the crashed economy if this happens and all progress ends and all regression is given a free hand. But don't count on it you so called "freedom loving patriots" who disguise sheer selfishness as "true Americans". They are going to pay in November for their evil of the "Big Lie" endlessly repeated until believed - awake Americans now.

Jim Wojtasiewicz (guest)
VA:

I'm not sure all of the Republican candidates that Mr. Steckler classifies as wackos would appreciate being labeled as such, much less being lumped together like that. Rand Paul opposes farm subsidies - that's good. In these times of so much anguish for so many well-paid Republican pundits about the economic suffering of "the American people," taxpayers should not be subsidizing farmers to not do their jobs, to the tune of $48,000 per farmer per year.

But wait, now Mr. Paul supports farm subsidies after he opposed them. Maybe somebody told him marijuana is also an agricultural crop. Sharon Angle now wants to eliminate Social Security by saving it. The point is that these aren't mavericks, they're just amateurs, John McCains and Mitch McConnells in the making, blowing wherever the wind blows.

Jim Wojtasiewicz (guest)
VA:

Now that America's bigots have thrown down a demand that the Park 51 Islamic Cultural Center be built somewhere else, in what way would it be a compromise to build it somewhere else? Closing the Carmelite convent near Auschwitz was also meant to be a compromise, but now the compromise part of it seems conveniently forgotten. Perhaps a better role for the Anti-Defamation League, more than lending its moral weight to the side of intolerance, might be to help find a dignified way out for losing side in this controversy?

Kenneth Wills (guest)
TX:

Steve Steckler needs to stop trying to equate left wing talk show hosts with right wing talk show hosts. It's a red herring to say one is equal to the other because they are on either end of the political spectrum. Here's a lesson for you, Steve: Bias is irrelevant to the truth. If global warming is a fact, bias irrelevant to that fact regardless of the rantings on Fox News. Having said that, there is no comparison between Olbermann and Maddow with Beck and Limbaugh (or any other right wing talk show host) - and it's not close. Rachel Maddow is an accomplished scholar in policitcal science and actually uses facts to support her positions. Contrast that with Beck who's a top 40 DJ and has a level of pretense that rivals Alice in Wonderland for factual accuracy. To say one equals the other is, at best, intellectually lazy.

Allen Linton (guest)
UT:

It would seem that Barack Obama is still an unknown in many ways. Barack Obama is the most opaque president in our lifetimes. After two years of exposure the American people still cannot figure him out and know little about his past or core beliefs. This president’s parents, birth, name, youth experiences, education, work experiences, professional relationships and religious background are all clouded in the minds of Americans. It should be no surprise many think he may be Muslim.

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